


Lost and Found

by anr



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-20
Updated: 2003-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny was fire, vengeance and anger. Joyce? Whisky and Cream. It makes sense, then, that Anya will be the mall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Post- _Chosen_ (7x22)

_"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."_  
(Martin Luther King Jr.)

  


* * *

  


In the Twin Pines Mall, twenty-four hours and fifty-nine miles from the crater that was once Sunnydale, the realisation catches him as swiftly, and as brutally, as a sucker punch.

Anya is dead.

Frozen in the modern classics section of Borders Books; dumbstruck by the volume in his hands. The realisation twists and turns in his mind -- Anya is dead. Anya is dead. Anya is dead -- and makes no more sense than the presence of 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham between Virginia Galilei's 'Letters To Father' and Nevil Shute's 'On The Beach'. Wrongly shelved, the book he's holding belongs two aisles over, in a dead woman's hands, her indignation aflame and voice rising as she proclaims the author's obvious ignorance of all matters pertaining to...

The book falls as he fumbles suddenly to remove his glasses, forefinger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose. But the pressure irritates without helping and when he looks down he can see the paperback resting precariously against his left shoe.

_"This is the book for us."_  
"Oh, good. Does it focus on mind control or memory loss?"  
"Not exactly, I just... my intuition tells me this is the book." 

"Sir? Sir, can I help you with something?"

He looks up slowly, blinking hard in that moment before his glasses return to their rightful place and bring a bright-faced shop assistant into edged clarity.

"Was there something in particular you were looking for?" she elaborates, earnest and helpful looking.

"No," his throat clears instinctively, "thank you -- I'm fine -- just browsing."

He circumvents the girl neatly and heads towards the store exit.

  


* * *

  


By the time he's fought his way to the food court -- twenty-nine minutes to accomplish one level and eighteen-odd feet; clearly there are forces of evil at work here -- he's managed to remind himself that Anya's death is of no great surprise. He was there, after all, when everyone clambered, slipshod, into the bus; automatically head-counting the survivors and lack thereof. _Dawn, Kennedy, Rona, Xander, Vi, Dominique, Willow, Chao-Ahn... go, into the bus, just go... where's Buffy? God... go already!_

Not to mention overhearing Xander and Andrew's exchange in the aftermath of the escape; seeing Willow and Dawn lighting candles in one of the motel rooms they'd invaded just before dark. Watching Buffy and Faith discuss casualties in the hospital waiting room as Slayers and Wood received medical attention.

So, no. No great surprise. Anya is dead, and he knows that. Has known it, in fact, since yesterday afternoon.

"Giles!"

He startles involuntarily at Dawn's shriek and turns to see the girl rushing towards him at great speed, unmindful of the milling crowd. Behind her, just barely, he can pick out Buffy following at a more sedate pace, arms full of gaudily-coloured bags; an indulgent smile on her lips.

"Giles! Giles! Giles!" Dawn again; now at his side and bouncing like Ethan used to, all those years ago, when on Guinness and eight-balls.

"Ready to eat?" he asks, smiling down at her, and Dawn pouts, smacking his upper arm none-too-gently.

" _Giles_!" she whines, "my _hair_!" His gaze rises and he has a brief glimpse of a short, bobbed 'do with blonde streaks, before she starts spinning, arms outstretched. "What do you think?" When the world has finished revolving around her, she's smiling widely again. "Buffy was _so_ sure I'd hate it once I -- "

_"I'm blonde. I, I coloured my hair. Again. I'm blonde."  
"Yes, I noticed."_

" -- saw it all done but I _totally_ don't! I love it! Isn't it just so _me_? Giles? _Giles_?"

"I'm sorry," he manages with some difficulty, refocussing on Dawn. "Oh, yes, your hair. Quite lovely."

Her face wrinkles with such a description and he strives for enthusiasm.

"Really," he adds, "you look... most fetching."

Arms cross and she stares at him in a rather non-teenagerly way. "Are you all right, Giles? I mean -- "

_"Are you stupid or something?"  
"Allow me to answer that question with a firing."_

Dawn's eyes have narrowed as she peers at him. " -- 'cause, well, you're looking all -- "

"White," supplies Buffy, joining them now and frowning as well. "And pinchy." Her hand, the one not laden with parcels and instead swaddled in gauze and burn cream, rests gently on his arm. "You okay?"

He nods and brightens his smile. "I'm fine." He takes her bags and makes a show of looking behind her. "Shall we wait for the others here or..."

"Wills and Xander -- "

" -- and Kennedy -- " pipes up Dawn, edging closer and closer towards a nearby coffee stand. He wonders what she's doing for a moment, and then realises she's peering at her reflection as it appears on the metallic side of the cappuccino machine.

" -- are still shopping," Buffy answers. "They'll catch up later."

"Right then." Subject successfully changed, he turns into the food court more. "Shall we?"

  


* * *

  


His chair is uneven; the table sticky. Buffy brings him a sandwich that he eats without tasting and Dawn finds him a cup of tea that scalds the roof of his mouth. _English Breakfast my foot_ , he thinks dourly, yet drinks it anyway. When he's finished he folds his right hand over his left and lets his thumb press against the pulse in his wrist. Hears his blood rushing in his ears, all disjointed and echoing, and pretends he's listening to Buffy and Dawn.

Deh-dum. Deh-dum. Deh-dum.

_"Honest to Petey, a young shopkeeper's heart can only take so much..."_

Deh-dum. Deh-dum.

_"Don't leave me..."_

Deh-dum.

"What about you, Giles?" Buffy interrupts his thoughts too easily, scattering his recollections of another girl who spoke far too much.

"I'm sorry?" he segues, releasing his wrist and handing Dawn his empty cup and sandwich wrapper as she stands to clear their table.

"Did you find..." a pause, in which she tries to remember what he's come to the mall for and fails because he didn't come here for anything per se, "... whatever it is you're looking for?"

"Not as yet," he answers shortly -- aggravated by a sudden insight that he _is_ looking for something and that, like he's just said, he _hasn't_ found it yet, whatever 'it' is -- but Buffy only smiles as she fidgets briefly with the edge of her bandage and then reaches for her purse.

"Well, Dawn and I are off to the Gap if you're interested -- "

An internal, automatic shudder at the thought makes him shake his head. "Thank you, but no."

"Okay, then." Still smiling, she rises from the table also. "Meet you back at the car in an hour?"

"That sounds fine," he says, tone agreeable despite the feeling he's now got which tells him that whatever he's suddenly looking for, he won't find it in an hour. "Shall I keep the bags for you?"

Relief allows Buffy to grace him with a blinding smile. "You're a lifesaver."

Dawn returns and the two wave cheerfully goodbye before disappearing into the crowd. He gathers the shopping bags then, nodding absently to the harried woman with two kids in tow who's already appropriated their now vacant table, and leaves himself.

_"Help me!"_

_Lifesaver?_ he repeats silently, fighting his way clear of the food court. _Hardly._

  


* * *

  


He shops with a purpose now; with a tenacity he would never have imagined himself capable of ascribing towards such a pastime. Never much one for window shopping, he'd come today only because the others had asked him to (and on the off-chance he'd find a bookstore with something of suitable quality to last his upcoming flight back to Bath. He deplores the paperback selections at airports).

Three book stores in the Twin Pines Mall. None of which possess that which his subconscious is suddenly asserting that it's essential for him to acquire.

_"No. Rupy, I'm sorry. You were right. That was the wrong book."  
"Oh, um, yes, it was."_

_But if it's not a book_ , he thinks, standing outside Barnes & Noble, _what **am** I looking for?_

  


* * *

  


Bloomingdales, Tower Records, Footlocker...

_"Capitalism. The free market depends on the profitable exchange of goods for currency. It's a system of symbiotic beauty apparently lost on these old people."_

Zales Jewelry, Radio Shack, Sears...

_"Look at 'em. Perusing the shelves. Undressing the merchandise with their eyeballs -- all ogle, no cash. It's not just annoying, it's un-American."_

Old Navy, Bath & Body Works, Godiva...

_"Appalling. Almost as if they no longer think money can buy happiness."_

He considers defeat outside FAO Schwarz, surrounded by people who actually seem to know where they're going and what they're going to purchase when they get there. His watch chimes the hour and he realises, belatedly, that he was meant to meet Buffy and Dawn and the others almost twenty minutes ago. _Damn_.

Fumbling with the bags of shopping, he locates his mobile and discovers, with no little difficulty, a message from Buffy already awaiting him. _Still shopping. Meet at 4pm instead._ The message is punctuated with a colon and parenthesis that he vaguely remembers Dawn explaining the meaning of but, of course, right now he can't quite recall what that meaning _is_. No matter.

The adjusted rendezvous time allows him another forty minutes or so, but overwhelming frustration has settled deeply. He decides to just make his way towards the car: if he finds 'it' on the way, so much the better. If he doesn't, well too -- bloody -- bad. The idea of failing, of not finding this elusive purchase, weighs uncomfortably but he forces resignation and starts walking. Searches the shopfronts he passes desperately for something that he cannot name.

_"Suggestions? Ideas? Time's a-wastin'!"_

He considers the possibility that by hunting for something which he will never find, he's losing his mind; insanity brought upon by unexpected grief for a one-time co-worker who existed for eleven-hundred-and-twenty-four years until yesterday. Eleven-hundred-and-twenty-four years of -- without warning, the span staggers him, literally, and he regains a semblance of balance by putting his palm on a bench, knuckles white on the arm rest.

 _Eleven-hundred-and-twenty-four years_ \-- he's researched prophecies older than time itself but this realisation, this knowledge, that a girl who looked half his age could have survived for _that_ long, through wars and famines and technology and revolutions and -- _my God_ , he thinks suddenly, _we killed her. Xander and Buffy and Willow and Cordelia and I -- all of us -- **we** killed her. Dragged her into our lives and led her down the road from immortality to -- to -- _

It occurs to him then that he doesn't know how she died. He knows _that_ she died, and _where_ she died, and what she died _for_...

_"Here to help. Wanna live."_

... but not _how_.

  


* * *

  


Willow's in some gaudy, pink and white, store. Victoria's Secrets, he thinks, but can't quite be certain -- he barely saw Xander and Kennedy out the front, let alone the shop's name, when he slipped between the racks of lingerie to find Willow examining clothing confectionaries.

"Giles!" she startles, a wisp of fabric in her hands. "Uh, hi!" A quick frown as her gaze pans wildly, cheeks flushing and embarrassment acute as she tries to hide the garment in her possession and whispers urgently, "you, uh, you do know that you're in a -- "

"How did she die?" he cuts her off, aware only that his hour has long since expired and that four o'clock draws far too near. Insanity has told him that when he gets this answer, he'll know what he's looking for, and he already knows that he can't leave the mall without it.

 _Dear Lord_ , he thinks self-deprecatingly, _I really have gone quite mad._

Willow blinks, surprise apparent. "Die? Um, who? How did who die?"

He forces himself to calm down, to draw a breath or a two. "Anya," he spells out, faux-patiently. "How did Anya die?"

Her eyes slant towards the front where Xander waits with Kennedy -- he'd rather expected she might do that -- and then back to him. "Anya? But she -- I mean, I thought you -- Andrew said she -- "

He nods. "Yes, yes -- died saving his life, I know that."

"Then -- " her head shakes and she looks to him with some concern, "Giles, hey, are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," he bites out, impatient despite himself, "just tell me how she died. You must have seen -- "

"What? Oh, no. No, I mean -- no, I wasn't there. I was in the Principal's office and Anya was... I mean, how could I have -- you sure you're okay, Giles?"

 _I'm fine,_ he repeats, staring at her, _just show me how she died. I know you, Willow, and I know you damn well watched!_

Her eyes have widened to the point of ludicrousness and he feels a small measure of satisfaction in having startled her further.

 _I didn't see_ , she confesses, reluctantly, _not really. Just --_

There's a sudden rush of images, of people. Xander and Dawn, himself and Wood, Buffy and Spike and Faith and Kennedy and all the Slayers... he sees Amanda fall in front of Buffy and Dawn beheading a Turok-Han as Xander grapples with it... Faith and Kennedy tag-teaming on a half-dozen foes and Spike channelling the sun...

 _Did you even care_ , he thinks angrily, uncaring if Willow hears him now, _about her? About what was happening to her and Andrew? You watched over us all -- high as a bloody kite from that spell -- and in the end --_

There's a pulse of displeasure at his thoughts -- _so she is listening..._ \-- and suddenly the flickering images still; slow-motion now as Willow's memories back-pedal through the hallways of the high school.

 _This is all I saw_ , she says tightly, showing him a half-second long-shot of Anya and Andrew fighting, and then says nothing more as he watches Andrew fade from view and a Bringer catch Anya unaware, its sword slicing her open from shoulder to hip.

They return to the store silently, still looking at each other, and he wonders if Willow has a defence to offer. Something along the lines of 'once I glimpsed that, I knew there was no point to watching further', but declines towards asking. If his wonderings are incorrect, the no doubt unintentional callousness could possibly ruin the friendship they've rebuilt this year.

So he doesn't say 'thank you' and she doesn't say 'you're welcome'. There's just a mutual nod as he turns and leaves; comforted -- if it can even be called such -- by the knowledge that he now knows what 'it' is.

  


* * *

  


There's no one at the car when he reaches it and, for that, he's glad. He needs time to compose himself; to remind himself that Anya being dead is still of no great surprise and, whilst it is definitely a tragedy, said death is not something worth making himself insane over. Bizarre shopping rampages in a mall notwithstanding.

He unlocks the vehicle -- he's not the driver but, apparently, being the eldest of their expedition allows him the privilege of carrying the keys; that and they all knew he'd be the first to fold from the fluorescent lights and sticky floors -- and places the girls' bags into the backseat. Settles himself into the front passenger seat and waits for four o'clock to arrive.

_"You should lock your door."  
"Believe me, I'm kicking myself."_

_"Oh, you mean an orgasm friend?"  
"Yes that's exactly the most appalling thing you could have said."_

_"Anya! Would you like a job?"  
"Okay."_

Five minutes later he rises again and moves the bags from the backseat to the boot. Claims the driver's seat -- 

_"I'll take really good care of your money."  
"Yes, I have no doubt."_

_"Look! It's okay. We're engaged."  
"Oh."_

_"Giles... you have to rest."  
"Silly girl. I'm dying."_

\-- and lets four o'clock find him roughly nineteen miles from Sunnydale.

  


* * *

  


Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, former vengeance demon and once-jilted bride, flunker of high school math and avid entrepreneur, is dead. _Dead_.

_"Giles! You're not dead!"  
"No."_

Wind churns the dust and debris at his ankles; abrades his legs as he stands on the lip of the crater, eyes shaded against the sunset. Tomorrow he'll make some calls, locate satellite pictures, work out the rough coordinates of her grave. Tomorrow he'll find her -- _really_ find _her_ \-- and pay his respects properly.

_"However, I am still in some pain."  
"Oh. Well. Why aren't you dead?"_

He bends briefly and collects a handful of rubble, sifting it absently until the larger pieces are gone and all that's left is a fine powder of dirt. He straightens again and stares at the horizon; feels the Diablo winds pry his hand open and the residue of Sunnydale trickle through his fingers.

_"Why aren't **I** dead?"_

_Anya_ , he thinks.

_"Rupert..."_

He closes his eyes and does not cry. _You are._

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/55803.html>


End file.
